I invited you over not for the cheery conversation bubble you’ll pull me into or because your presence will undoubtedly fill our humble home with good spirit. No, you got that precious invite because having guests over is the kick-in-the-butt I need to clean the bathroom.

Sure, I’ll wait until your car door is being slammed shut in our driveway, but clean the bathroom I will.

Always the considerate host.

Welcome!

Our small ranch home’s guest bathroom is like a toy blind bag, only not even half as exciting; I never ever ever ever know what I’m going to find in there. My god I dread cleaning it.

It’s not just the stray lady pee on the front of the lid — man, I’d be golden if that’s all that was going wrong in there!

It’s also the cat’s, um, office for doing her, um, business. And how that somehow spreads out of her cubicle.

It’s the girls’ mad scientist make-up laboratory in and around the sink.

The three female members of my family who will greet you warmly at the door, yeah, those three, they lift nary a finger to help me clean the bathroom. Thankfully, I have a rock-solid partner in removing the grime: Clorox® Bleach.

What were you expecting, a magical cleaning leprechaun? Man, I wish.

This Is What’s Happening Before You Show Up At My House

I’m not delusional enough to expect to present to you with a perfectly serene and clean bathroom — that’s unicorn stuff — but as the bathroom is the place where you’ll spend time partially out of some of your clothes while over at my place (and where the four people who have to live with the bathroom 24/7 will spend time in their birthday suits) the bathroom needs to be as clean as possible and ideally not only in advance of the big birthday party I’ve invited you over for which starts in…OMG! like 15 minutes from right now!

Here’s how I get the guest bathroom ready for you, in the moments before you show up at my house:

The toilet is cleaned first.

Okay, that’s sort of a lie.

The cat litter is swept up off the tile floor and scooped first so I don’t get granules of litter stuck to my clammy bare feet — that’s foul. Then it’s on to the toilet with Clorox® Toilet Bowl Cleaner – with Bleach.

The rad angled top of the blue bottle lets me easily squirt the cleaning solution up under the brim, let it run down into the bowl, and then I proceed to scrub like my life depends on it to bring back the bright white sheen to the bowl. My vigorous right arm effort generates copious amounts of bubbles which pleases me greatly, because apparently, I’m still a toddler.

Look, stop your snickering. I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation down here with my face 18 inches from the toilet. So…BUBBLES!!! I wait 5 minutes for sanitizing and I look around at what else I can do.

Next up is…wait, what is THAT all over the sink? It’s like a rainbow puked in there! Here comes Clorox® Clean-up® Cleaner + Bleach to make all of THAT go away before you make it up the walkway to our front door.

I remove any strange excess substance from the surface and toss it right in the trash.

Spray – Spray – Spray.

Let sit for 30 seconds — tick, tick, tick…

Put some muscle into wiping up with a dry washcloth (note: not one of the crusty ones I found in the shower)

Finally, as I back my way out of the room, it’s down onto the tile floor one more time with the wet and soapy washcloth I just used (note: not one of the other ones I found in the shower) to scrub the floor around the litter box, in the grout between the tiles, the baseboard, and on either side of the toilet. Just use ½ of Clorox® Regular Bleach2 with CLOROMAX® mixed with a gallon of water, let it sit for five minutes, rinse and let dry. Poof, bye-bye germs.

No unicorns, no leprechauns, but all clean. That’s my dirty little secret.

It ain’t magic, it’s Clorox – with Bleach.

Now, tell me something funny and have a bite to eat. I’ll take your coat. The bathroom is the first door on the left.

This post is sponsored by Clorox. The story told, and opinions expressed, above are honest and unbiased, as always.